Government ‘Sloppiness’ in Ted Stevens Case Criticized by Panel

March 28 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Justice Department botched
the corruption case against the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens,
leading to a conviction that torpedoed the re-election of the
chamber’s longest serving Republican, senators said.

Lawmakers in both parties criticized the prosecution today
at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Henry Schuelke III, a
court-appointed special counsel, testified at the hearing on his
514-page report on misconduct in the case.

“Significant evidence was not disclosed to the defense and
critical mistakes were made throughout the course of the trial
that denied Senator Stevens a fair opportunity to defend
himself,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and
chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “The sloppiness, mistakes
and poor decisions in connection with the Stevens case disturbed
the judge hearing the case and disturb me.”

Prosecutors repeatedly hid evidence that could have helped
Stevens defend himself at trial and undermined the credibility
of the government’s key witness, Schuelke said in the report.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan made the report public
March 15, almost three years after he set aside Stevens’s
conviction for omitting $250,000 worth of gifts, mainly
improvements to his Girdwood, Alaska, home, from his financial
disclosure reports.

Stevens, who served 40 years in the Senate, lost a re-election campaign in 2008. He died in a plane crash in 2010 at
age 86.

‘Very Troubling Matter’

Still, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican
on the Judiciary panel, said misconduct in the Stevens
prosecution was “a very troubling matter that warrants more
attention than it has gotten.”

“Reading through this report is like reading through a
case study in poor management,” Grassley said. “We have an
obligation to hold the Justice Department responsible for what
happened here and to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

As an example of evidence that should have been disclosed
to Stevens’ defense team, Schuelke highlighted a report finding
that prosecutors anticipated that Rocky Williams, a potential
government witness, would have corroborated Stevens’ claims that
he had paid for upgrades to his home. Had that information been
disclosed, it “may well have affected the outcome of the
trial,” Schuelke testified. Williams had to return to Alaska
for medical reasons and didn’t testify at the trial.

Separate Investigation

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional
Responsibility has completed a separate investigation, Attorney
General Eric Holder told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on
March 8. The office’s report, which hasn’t been made public,
includes sanction recommendations, Holder said.

The Justice Department’s misconduct review is “in its last
stages,” and the Office of Professional Responsibility findings
will be made public “to the extent it is appropriate and
permissible under the law,” according to a department statement
submitted to the committee today. Disclosure would “have
significant Privacy Act implications,” according to the
statement.

Grassley today echoed lawmakers’ calls for the Justice
Department to release a full, un-redacted version of the report.
The office of professional responsibility will decide how much
of the report to make public, Holder said during testimony
before the Judiciary Committee in November.

“I want to share as much of that as we possibly can, given
the very public nature of that matter, and the very public
decision that I made to dismiss the case,” Holder said.

Holder asked Sullivan to dismiss the case as Stevens
awaited sentencing, after a department review determined the
evidence had been withheld. The investigation had begun during
the administration of President George W. Bush.

Schuelke’s law firm received $981,842 in payments for work
on the investigation between April 2009 and the end of his
appointment this month, according to a statement yesterday from
the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.